Marvin Erlendson was unabashed liberal in Pentagon during Nixon era

Deaths

August 22, 2008|By Adrian G. Uribarri, Sentinel Staff Writer

The year 1973 was a difficult time for Marvin Jacob Erlendson to work at the Pentagon.

Top brass at the Defense Department were throwing their weight behind President Richard Nixon's Vietnam efforts, and Erlendson, strongly opposed to the war, was powerless to change things as a midlevel bureaucrat.

But Erlendson, in charge of allocating office space at the nation's defense headquarters, quietly concocted a plan. In a building packed with Republicans, he set up a room of televisions, then tuned them to the Watergate hearings.

"They can't get him for that now," said his daughter, Lisa Scott. Erlendson died Tuesday in his Winter Garden home, holding his daughters' hands. He was 90.

Erlendson's wish to see Hillary Clinton become president was unfulfilled before his death.

"Since he had four daughters, that meant a lot to him," Scott said. "He had hoped that sexism was on the wane, and he felt that her losing the nomination meant it was not."

Yet the unabashedly liberal North Dakotan came to admire Barack Obama and later told Scott that "if we couldn't have a woman president in 2008, he was glad we would have a black one."

His political views might have grated on conservatives -- his daughter jokingly called him the only member of the "Central-Florida-people-over-90-who-are-liberal club" -- but his diplomatic demeanor earned the respect of those with whom he disagreed, she said.

Bill Knowles, a Republican and former chief deputy of Orange County, said he spent several hours every week talking with Erlendson at the West Orange Country Club.

"He had so many great stories," Knowles said. "It was just a privilege to sit and talk with a man that was as well traveled and well read as he was."

Knowles said they discussed history, family and Erlendson's service as a World War II pilot. When they broached politics, he said, discussions were pleasant. "He never forced his view," Knowles said. "We'd just talk it out."

When Erlendson wasn't conversing with friends, he was reading, often with an iPod or CD player blasting Mozart or the Brandenburg Concertos.

But his eyes and ears began to fail, Scott said. He never complained, she said, but the bon vivant lost his joy.